Puchkov pulled her car into the very small parking lot to the south of the market, past the store’s own lot, and turned the engine off. She sat inside, working through the rough plan in her mind. She’d parked away from the market so she could walk past the corner where an exfiltration signal would be marked. Whether the signal was there or not, she would go inside, buy some bread and beer, and return to her car. The only question would be where she would go after. If there was no mark, she would go home. If the chalk line was present, she would never see her apartment again. She would drive to the exfiltration point her handler had identified, and fate willing, she would be on United States soil within two days.
Puchkov stepped out of her car, shut the door, and set the locks. She looked for approaching cars. Seeing none, she walked north toward the market.
All she had to do was look at the brick, nothing more.
No one was following. Kyra was a hundred yards from the market when her stomach twisted inward. Her instincts began to scream, and she stopped moving. She swept the scene in front of her, her mind dissecting the picture.
There was very little to see. The only person in sight was a woman, boyish dark hair, short, and a little overweight. She was fifty yards from Kyra’s position, but her profile at this distance matched the photograph Kyra had seen in the file. Puchkov.
Kyra still wouldn’t move, not until she had found the source of her anxiety. She stared at her surroundings.
Finally, she saw it. This is a supermarket, she thought. Where is everyone?
Kyra’s gut twisted.
In that instant, Kyra knew that Major Elizaveta Igoryevna Puchkov was a dead woman.
Puchkov slowed on the sidewalk and turned her head, looking away from the market doors toward the corner where the store met the apartment building. There was no line.
Puchkov was seventy-five yards from her car now, too far to make it back when the trap sprang closed. The Spetsnaz soldiers erupted out of the market, nearby cars, two other buildings. There were at least two dozen of them, maybe more. Every direction in which Puchkov might have run had been identified and blocked off. The Russian woman would have no chance to fight her way out against any one of the men in the circle collapsing around her position.
Kyra wanted to scream at Puchkov, tell her to run anyway, but she knew it was futile. There was no help for the GRU officer now. She would be detained, interrogated, and executed. Kyra could see it, as though it had already happened.
One soldier was moving in a different direction, away from Puchkov—
— toward her. He was yelling in Russian, probably commands to stop, she was sure, but her mind refused to focus on the man’s orders. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the Russian woman, watching as the dragnet shrank around her.
The soldier running in her direction was fifty yards away, her car two hundred yards behind her. Kyra’s legs refused to move.
Her mind tore the world around her apart, time slowing down for the few seconds she had before the soldier reached her position.
The Spetsnaz had cordoned off the area earlier, before either she or Puchkov had arrived. How was that possible? Even if they had followed her, they couldn’t have known where she was going.
There was only one answer. The Russians had known where the CIA would leave a mark to signal Puchkov. Maines had given that to them. The locals had seen the Spetsnaz arrive and known enough to stay away.
Puchkov had been expected, but Kyra’s arrival had surprised them, just a stroke of bad timing for her and good for them. Whether she was a random Russian shopper or had some connection to Puchkov, they wouldn’t know, but they would detain her for questioning to find out.
It would take them exactly one question to figure out that she couldn’t speak Russian and that would settle the issue. They wouldn’t accept that it was a coincidence that an American had blundered into their raid site. They would search the airport customs files and security footage to identify her. Eventually, they would know that she was not who her passport claimed she was and whatever had happened to Jon would happen to her.
The first Spetsnaz soldiers reached Puchkov and knocked the woman onto the sidewalk, her face smashing into the concrete, tearing the skin from her cheek. Two men pulled her arms up behind her back, like the spread wings of a chicken, while another forced a rope into her mouth. Two others began stripping her coat and shirt off to remove any means of suicide she might have hidden away. The rest drew their sidearms on the woman, approaching more slowly, ready to put her down in case she had some way of resisting they couldn’t see.
The other soldiers circled around her and Kyra lost sight of the GRU major.
Another yell in Russian ripped Kyra’s focus away from the arrest and back to the man running at her. He was thirty yards away now.
Kyra’s legs finally moved.
She spun around and ran for her car, but she knew that she wouldn’t make it. She’d seen how fast the soldier was. By the time she could get up to a full sprint, he could only be a few yards behind her and could run her down on foot, even if he didn’t shoot her first. Kyra had no Glock concealed in her waistband under her coat, and it would have been no help anyway. Even had she won a gunfight, which was unlikely, the report of a shot would draw the attention of the soldier’s team. With Puchkov down, the rest would be free to lay down fire on her position and she would die. They were a hundred yards from the raid site now. The distance would make for a very long pistol shot, but some of the men would have rifles, and even two hundreds yards wouldn’t be a long shot for a Special Forces soldier.
She turned her head to look behind and saw that the soldier had cut the distance in half.
Kyra had trained in Krav Maga, knew how to disarm an attacker, but the man ten yards away had combat training of his own, equal to hers at least, and he was surely at least twice as strong as her if not more. She couldn’t take him hand-to-hand. He would put her down like Puchkov and the outcome would be the same.
He was ten yards back and still picking up speed. He was drawing his gun. There was no good cover between her and the car. A few parked cars, some trees, nothing truly defensible.
Kyra had one option left.
She skidded to stop, her hand touching the ground for balance. He was six yards away.
The Spetsnaz officer got his Makarov clear of the holster. Running hard, he had trouble finding the safety. He glanced down at his sidearm. For a second, his eyes were off Kyra and on his weapon.
She rushed toward the soldier, trying to close the distance between them before the Russian raised his gun. Her hand was in her own coat pocket.
The soldier’s speed running played against him now and he was unable to stop himself before Kyra got inside his firing arc. The safety was off, the first round in the chamber and the pistol came up, but Kyra was past the end of his outstretched arm. She was going to hit him running full speed.
Kyra pulled the Taser from her coat, flipping off the safety in the same motion.
Foolish woman, the soldier started to think. He was twice her weight, would knock her backward, flipping her over and slamming her down on her spine, probably breaking vertebrae or cracking her pelvis. Either would leave her screaming in agony. He wouldn’t even have to waste a bullet—
— the woman veered slightly at the last second before they hit. Her hand came up, something black and thin in her grip, and he heard the loud, machine-gun-clicking of an active electrical current.